April marked a pivotal acceleration in Hong Kong’s rise as a global hub for regulated digital assets, as the city advanced a series of landmark Web3 policy initiatives. On April 10, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) issued its first stablecoin issuer licenses, with leading financial institutions such as Standard Chartered-backed “Anchor” and HSBC among the early approvals from 36 applicants. Soon after, on April 19, the Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) expanded the regulatory framework further by allowing tokenized authorized investment products to be traded on licensed virtual asset platforms in secondary markets.
These coordinated developments signaled a structural transformation rather than incremental reform. For Eddie Chong, Chairman of the SFI (Stable Coin Infrastructure) Ecosystem Foundation, this moment represents the long-anticipated alignment of regulatory clarity and infrastructure readiness. His long-term thesis—placing stablecoins at the center of a system connecting real-world assets (RWA) and artificial intelligence—has now moved decisively from concept to execution.
Building the Infrastructure the Industry Eventually Depends On
Eddie Chong’s strategy in Web3 has consistently focused on identifying foundational gaps before they become visible to the broader market. As Chairman of SFI, founder of X Infinity, and Executive Chairman of HK Web3 Club, he operates across a global ecosystem spanning Asia, Europe, and the Americas, with influence across more than 100 companies and a large-scale entrepreneurial network.
Rather than reacting to cycles, he builds the systems that cycles later rely on.
After discovering Bitcoin in 2015, Chong recognized early scalability limitations that restricted its use in global payments. This insight led him to establish X Infinity, a blockchain infrastructure initiative focused on performance and scalability. During the 2019–2020 downturn, he shifted strategically toward real-world asset tokenization, anticipating that blockchain’s long-term viability would depend on bridging physical and digital value systems.
That conviction has since scaled into a $5 billion RWA portfolio across more than 400 investments. In 2026, he co-founded SFI with a precise objective: resolve the structural barriers in RWA adoption—particularly liquidity and compliant access mechanisms—that prevent tokenized assets from functioning as true financial instruments.
SFI: A Multi-Layer System for Continuous Value Circulation
SFI is designed as an integrated financial infrastructure network rather than a standalone platform. Its architecture connects stablecoins, RWA markets, AI systems, and real-world consumption into a unified value flow system.
At its foundation sits Solulu Club, providing liquidity infrastructure with over 200,000 active users and strong transactional depth. Built around it are five core modules:
- Solulu Pay, enabling compliant fiat-to-crypto payment rails that bridge traditional finance and Web3 ecosystems.
- Caviar, a luxury commerce platform allowing real-world spending using stablecoins.
- COPX DAO, leveraging AI-driven quantitative systems to optimize trading efficiency and liquidity performance.
- RWA Incubator, supporting compliant asset tokenization and institutional onboarding.
- RWA Exchange, enabling secondary market trading and price discovery for tokenized assets.
Together, SFI, COPX DAO, and Caviar form what Chong defines as the “Iron Triangle”—a self-reinforcing structure where infrastructure, value generation, and consumption continuously strengthen one another. Stablecoins serve as the central settlement axis connecting the entire ecosystem.
Hong Kong’s Regulatory Shift as a Market Catalyst
For years, RWA adoption was constrained by two systemic challenges: lack of compliant entry infrastructure and insufficient liquidity formation. Hong Kong’s April regulatory expansion directly addressed both.
Stablecoin licensing introduced a regulated issuance and circulation framework, while secondary market authorization for tokenized assets enabled real liquidity channels for digital instruments. This positioned Hong Kong as one of the most advanced regulated Web3 jurisdictions globally.
SFI leveraged this momentum through active participation in the Hong Kong Web3 Festival, where it demonstrated a fully integrated ecosystem spanning payments, tokenization, trading, and real-world consumption.
During industry discussions, Chong emphasized a core structural limitation in the RWA sector: tokenization alone does not create utility. Without users and liquidity, assets remain inactive and fail to generate meaningful economic function. He highlighted SFI’s advantage in combining an existing user base with real consumption scenarios, transforming stablecoins into practical financial instruments.
Meanwhile, SFI continues to expand its global compliance framework, securing regulatory approvals across the United States and Canada, with ongoing progress in the UAE and Hong Kong. This architecture is designed not only for internal scalability but also as reusable infrastructure for the broader Web3 ecosystem.
The Next Phase: Convergence of RWA and AI Systems
Chong views the current expansion of RWA markets as only the first phase of a broader systemic evolution. The next stage will be defined by deep integration between real-world assets and artificial intelligence.
On-chain RWA assets have already surpassed $25 billion, with projections pointing toward multi-trillion-dollar growth by 2030. At the same time, AI systems are evolving from analytical tools into autonomous economic agents capable of executing transactions and managing capital flows.
He sees this convergence as inevitable: RWA provides real-world value backing, while AI provides the intelligence layer required to activate and optimize that value at scale.
Within SFI, this integration is already active. COPX DAO applies AI models to automated trading strategies including arbitrage, hedging, and yield optimization. AI-driven analytics also generate real-time pricing signals based on market conditions, asset fundamentals, and sentiment data—addressing long-standing inefficiencies in valuation and liquidity discovery.
Chong’s framework remains consistent: compliance forms the foundation, stablecoins act as the axis, AI serves as the engine, and RWA provides the fuel. Together, they create a self-sustaining financial flywheel.
From Vision to Operational Ecosystem
Eddie Chong’s trajectory reflects a consistent philosophy: build foundational infrastructure ahead of demand and focus on structural gaps others overlook.
With SFI, that philosophy is now materializing into a functioning ecosystem that connects financial infrastructure, AI systems, and real-world economic activity. Hong Kong’s regulatory acceleration has acted as a catalyst, but long-term success depends on scalable systems capable of sustaining liquidity, compliance, and adoption across cycles.
As stablecoins, RWA, and AI continue to converge, the value flywheel Chong envisioned is no longer theoretical—it is becoming an operational financial system designed for continuous, real-world value creation at scale.
